


el sabor de sangre

by Scared_Beings_in_the_Dark



Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: Angst, Blood, Gen, Minor mentions of other canon characters, No spoilers?, Read end notes for major story-spoiler warning, The title is about blood, You've been warned, kind of a five times fic, lots of blood, some language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-29
Updated: 2015-04-29
Packaged: 2018-03-26 07:28:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3842257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scared_Beings_in_the_Dark/pseuds/Scared_Beings_in_the_Dark
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sonny hates blood. He's not scared of it, per se, but he just really doesn't like it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	el sabor de sangre

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Not mine. Do not own anything recognizable.
> 
> Warnings: a bit of language.
> 
> Read end notes for story-centric spoilers.

**1\. Sight**

 

Bella's five the first time she skins her knee badly. She doesn't cry or fuss, even when Sonny takes the alcohol wipes Mom keeps on the top shelf in the bathroom and cleans off the blood and dirt.

 

Fascinated, she watches the blood come back. Sonny clicks his tongue against the roof of his mouth, like Mom does when she's disappointed, before climbing back up to fetch the big gauze pads Dad uses to clean his gun. By the time his sneakers hit the floor again, Bella's dug out the duck tape.

 

Together, they manage to wrap her entire knee with the gauze and tape.

 

Good as new, Bella declares, kicking Sonny to prove her point. But, she picks at it, untroubled by the pain, making it bleed again.

 

Sonny gets her a new bandage. And another and another. Red-tinged gauze pads haunt the bathroom for nearly a week. By that time, she's got an infection and will always have a wicked scar. Sonny decides he really, really hates the sight of blood.

 

 

**2\. Taste**

 

During his teen years, Sonny suffers from a condition known as mining-for-gold-plus-dry-air and has nosebleeds every other day of the week. These aren't the nice—if one can even call a nosebleed  _nice_ —there and gone again, barely a drip ones Bella sometimes claims she gets.

 

These are tsunamis of blood gushing out every time Sonny even thinks of sneezing.

 

He swallows so much of his own blood that he gets sick at the taste of it, perpetually gagging and choking as he tries not to bleed, breathe, or vomit all at once.

 

He spends most of freshman year stuck in the nurse's office, head between his legs.

 

He also spends an unfortunate amount of time at home hanging over the toilet while Mom tinkers with a humidifier that never works right.

 

By the time Sonny learns not to touch his nose, he's observed a hundred thousand drips of blood swirling into water, tossed a hundred thousand crumpled tissues soaked in red at trash cans already covered in the stained paper, swallowed a hundred thousand sickening congealing clumps of bloody mucous.

 

When he announces to his family that he has absolutely no intention of ever becoming a doctor, they agree readily. Sonny decides he really, really hates the taste of blood.

 

 

**3\. Smell**

 

In college, Sonny has the misfortune of being on a pickup basketball team. He's a lousy shot and a worse point-guard, but they're short a man, and Sonny's roommate really thinks he's a swell guy.

 

All the other guys rib him, knock into him, and trod on his feet. They heckle and jeer, and Sonny accidentally scores in the wrong hoop because he doesn't understand street rules.

 

But, when a ball goes wrong and smashes into a random bystander's face, knocks her off the bleachers onto the cement, Sonny's the only one brave enough to crouch down next to her, a towel filched from another player's girlfriend held to her bleeding scalp. The iron smell wafts up, sticking in Sonny's nose and it's all he can do not to move away to retch.

 

The wound isn't severe, but it bleeds a lot. The girl grins at him later, as she's loaded in the ambulance, towel still pressed to her head. Her blood is starting to dry on Sonny's hands, itching and flaking, and he stares at them, surprised to see they're not shaking.

 

His roomie slaps his back and Sonny catches the scent of them, of the blood staining the creases.

 

He barely manages not to actually puke on his roommate, but the splatter of vomit next to his shoes has him backpedaling away from Sonny, who wants to laugh at the irony as blood begins dripping down his face from his nose.

 

He waves away any help, marching steadily to the park's bathroom so he can sit on an open faced toilet reeking of urine that he can barely smell over the blood in his nostril, head between his knees, scarlet painting perfect circles on the floor.

 

Sonny decides then that he really, really hates the smell of blood.

 

 

**4\. Touch**

 

The gunfight's quick. Over in a few loud snaps that Sonny can't believe came from guns.

 

It's his first year on the force, in Homicide, greener than a stalk of celery and not ready at all for this.

 

He didn't even discharge his weapon.

 

The suspect is on the floor, everyone milling around doing nothing for the bleeding man. Sonny crawls on hands and knees, strips off his Kevlar so he can tug his shirt off to use to stem the flow.

 

The man groans as he pushes the material against the wound. And Sonny feels the warmth on his hands as the liquid soaks through it quickly. He catches the scent of the blood and gags quietly, swallowing hard, panting through his growing nausea.

 

The man begins chanting a prayer, something in Spanish that Sonny only half understands because the man's voice is too low and he can barely hear over the pounding in his ears.

 

Wet, warm, breathing and then not. Sonny sits back when someone pulls at his shoulder. He looks up at his captain, holds up his hands stained crimson. He flexes his fingers, watching his captain's mouth moving but not hearing what he says.

 

Someone else hands him his shirt and he recoils from it, back hitting the wall, feet skittering as they work to support his unbalanced weight. He puts his head down in his hands, jerks up, feels the blood sticking to him, to his face.

 

He panics, scrubbing his hands over his tank top, wiping, wiping, wiping.

 

Long after, when he's standing in front of the precinct's sink, soap and hot water and not enough, not clean enough, he cries. Sonny decides he really,  _really_  hates the feel of blood.

 

 

**5\. Sound**

 

He wakes up naked, suspended, hanging by his arms pulled over his head, wrists chained together to a hook over his head. His toes can touch the ground only if he angles them just right. The strain on his shoulders is painful, and no matter what he does, he can't get enough friction to lift himself enough to slide his bound wrists off the hook.

 

He jerks spasmodically, toes stretched, hands flexing.

 

There is no one else in the room, a large warehouse with one solitary door that Sonny faces. Then, the door bangs open and a man Sonny thinks he should recognize stalks up to him.

 

With a push of his hand, he sets Sonny spinning. At the same time, he pulls out a knife from behind his back, trailing it over Sonny's chest and back as his momentum drags him over the blade again and again.

 

It doesn't hurt at first. But, a burning sensation grows the longer the knife touches him. It's sharp and digs into his skin.

 

Finally, the man stops, holsters his knife, and walks away, leaving Sonny spinning slower and slower, dripping blood onto the floor.

 

Sonny sags and his feet touch down. He cries out as his torso twists while his legs lock. It hurts. Bad.

 

Blood runs faster, his wounds wrenched open.

 

The steady drip, drip becomes a river of red, washing down his legs, spreading over the cement floor.

 

His hearing tunnels, and suddenly all he can concentrate on are the splashes from larger drops shaking off his body. It's steady but irregular. And it drives him mad.

 

He doesn't have the energy to do more than sag on the hook, shoulders tensing under the increased strain. His toes are cold, sitting in a puddle of his own blood. And still he drips.

 

He can smell it, imagines the taste in his mouth. He gags quietly, sobbing harshly as his wounds protest the contractions of his diaphragm. The harder he sobs, the more it hurts, the more it hurts, the more he gags. A vicious cycle that he doesn't know how to break.

 

Each breath he manages only makes his need to throw up greater, and each time he chokes on his retch it hurts that much more.

 

The man comes back before Sonny loses the battle. He shoves his hands under Sonny's armpits, lifting him off the hook. Sonny screams in pain at the sudden movement.

 

He faints briefly, blissful non-feeling for moment or two. The man brings him back, slapping at his face. And still Sonny hears the drip, splash of his blood.

 

The man is speaking but Sonny can't hear him, can only hear blood that isn't in his body. He's cold and, under the man's rough grip, he shivers.

 

He never hears the shot, has to be told about it later, but he feels it when the man collapses on him, warmth spreading between them.

 

Sonny cries as the blood drip, splashes down him.

 

He decides then that he hates, really,  _really fucking hates_  the sight, taste, smell, touch, and sound of blood.

 

 

**6\. Senses**

 

Much, much later, when Sonny's wounds have healed into thin scars, when he no longer dreams of crimson rivers running from his body to drip, splash onto a cold floor, when he doesn't dream of a heavy body on his, blood mingling with his, when he no longer wakes up with the scent of iron in his nostrils and the taste of bile on his tongue, Sonny comes back to work.

 

No one comes near him, all worried eyes and tightly pressed lips. He stares back at them, sitting very still, trying to pretend he doesn't hear the blood rushing in his ears.

 

At lunch, he sneezes. Blood drips from one nostril. Comically, the others duck and cover, one of them throwing at box of tissues at him, which he catches one handed.

 

As he tastes the blood collecting on his lip, Sonny feels his pulse quicken, feels panic marching steadily up his spine, making the hair on his arms stand up. For a heart-stopping moment, Sonny wonders if he's going to break. If this is all it takes.

 

Then, he calmly pulls a tissue free, holds it to his nose, and puts his head between his knees.

 

He may hate blood, but blood doesn't hate him.

 

And he can learn to live with it.

 

~ The End ~

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah, so another story written while I was supposed to be working.
> 
> Sorry.
> 
> Also, my Spanish is rudimentary. The title literally is "The taste of blood."
> 
> Spoiler One: The man who has Sonny in the warehouse is the brother of the man who was killed when Sonny was at Homicide.  
> Spoiler Two: The man is in the act of raping Sonny when one of the others (Fin or Benson) shoots him.
> 
>  
> 
> Happy reading!


End file.
